Friday 24 February 2012

Good luck Paul Cook!

Coleman's departure shocked everyone. I don't think any Accrington fan could picture the dugout without John screaming at the linesman and arguing with the 4th official. It became his club. He was the God of the Crown Ground, the king. So when he decided to leave for Rochdale a month ago the first question was who on earth could replace him? A man who improved on last years league position for 12 consecutive years, 3 promotions in the process and brought us back to the football league in 2006. Massive shoes to fill.

After Richardson's brief interim manager role, Paul Cook was named manager just over a week ago. Paul Cook was a key part to the Stanley team that won promotion in 2005/06. He was very much John and Jimmy's 3rd man. More recent, he managed Sligo Rovers in Ireland and brought them much success, both in the league and cup. Even earning them a Europa League spot on a tight budget, he was Stanley's no.1 target and very early became the bookies favourite.

Since his appointment Stanley have lost both games (0-4 Plymouth, 2-0 Crewe) and our next game is Swindon away, who have won their last 7 games on the bounce. Cook couldn't have asked for a worse start. Hopefully we can pull of a shock on Saturday and push for that play-off position! I'm sure Cook will be the right man but needs time to adjust and bring in his players. Time will only tell....

Josh.

Saturday 4 February 2012

GAME OFF.

Todays game against Crewe Alexandra has been postponed due to a frozen pitch.

I was really looking forward to this one! Two good teams and it would have been a very close match! I was also planning on bringing my mate to his first accrington game so it has messed my day up a bit!

On a more general note I would like to write about how league 1/2 clubs are struggling to keep the games on. Obviously in such a low economic time every business will take an hit, even football clubs. The problem that the lower clubs have got is they cannot afford undersoil heating or whatever stuff that keep the pitch warm. Some clubs struggle to even afford plain covers to go over the pitch! It is extremely rare to see a premiership postponement now and even most championship sides have good enough pitches to fight against the club. No football fan likes to see games being called off and I think that the FA should put some funding into the lower league clubs for that purpose. Its starting to feel like the prem and championship are storming on ahead while the lower leagues are just left to fend for themselves.

On another note, I WILL start writing a match preview & post match reaction again on all the stanley games.

J.